


Been Here Before

by kenzimone



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221b Ficlets, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF John Watson, Captain John Watson, Character Death, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-06 18:13:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenzimone/pseuds/kenzimone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of 221B ficlets: </p><p>Resurrection, as turns out, is a messy business—mostly due to the fact that the living keep on living, out of no respect for the (not quite) dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Battlefield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really know why my brain made me come out of a year long hiatus to write a post-TRF drabble on the eve of the season three premiere, especially since it's already been covered by so many talented people and probably far more eloquently than I managed to do in 221 words. But here we are. Enjoy.

John's world doesn't crumble.

It trembles and lurches, shakes hard enough to throw him off his feet, but it doesn't break.

London is a battlefield, a front line hiding beneath a veneer of normalcy, and Sherlock Holmes is the General of their army of two, waging an impossible war as John follows.

He's walked shoulder to shoulder with brothers in arms through far more dangerous places than this. He's followed them into battle with the promise of ruin and carried them through burning and scorching wastelands, where the air dances on the horizon and death shadows every step.

His skin has been stained by the blood of men and women far greater than Sherlock Holmes – men and women _good_ in a way Sherlock might one day have become – and John's held their lives in his hands and watched them slip away between his fingers, their eyes seeking his and their teeth smeared red with death and fear and pain and _God, no_ and _John_.

John's world doesn't crumble. It shakes and throws him to his knees, hands sinking into blistering sand as blood pools beneath his palms, and he breathes and chokes, the smell of burning metal on the air and the taste of loss on his tongue.

Still, he rises.

London might be a battlefield, but John's been here before.


	2. Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While watching His Last Vow I was positive that the confrontation with Magnussen would play out differently than it actually did. This is something along the lines of what I half expected/half hoped would happen.

It's not the first time he's been underestimated. It _is_ the first time he's allowed it to go this far.

His bearing and stance and file says Afghanistan veteran with all that it entails, yet people tend to focus on his medical degree.

 _But you're a doctor?_ they say, picturing sterile, air conditioned rooms tucked safely inside solidly defended bases, while John dreams of stinging sand and endless sky and flesh torn apart by shrapnel and bullet, of blood and burning fat and charred skin, voices raised in alarm and rage and pain and warning.

The man standing before him is dangerous, but so is John.

It's easy to catch Magnussen off guard, to raise one hand to grip his throat and hold him in place while the other plucks the gun out of John's coat pocket. The muzzle slots in nicely beneath Magnussen's chin, and John might be somewhat of a writer but in situations like these he's never been a man of many words.

He pulls the trigger and the bullet does the rest, burrowing through tissue and bone. Some of it splatters onto John's face. It's warm, and he can feel it even as Sherlock grabs his arm and twists him away from the falling body.

That's all right; John's a doctor. He doesn't mind a little blood.


	3. Brand-new

Seven months after she's raised from the grave, Mary Morstan joins a gym.

Civilian life has made her slow. She feels sluggish, not as quick on her feet as she once was, weighed down by a real life built from scratch; apartment, part time job, nursing school, acquaintances, a _schedule_.

Magnussen is still in London, a spider spinning his web, _expanding_ it, and Mary can feel the strings' fretful trembling. She never has liked loose ends.

She strikes up a conversation with the brunette on the machine next to her. She's a pretty girl, eyes dark and wide, face flushed with exercise; unattached, new to London and starting fresh with a posh job, a pay rise and new wardrobe to match, an unfamiliar social scene to blend into, and a New Year's resolution still young enough that it might actually stick.

Mary knows the file lying on her kitchen table by heart by now, and it's easy to bait her hooks with mutual interests. She waits three weeks until she suggests they go out for a coffee.

“Now don't laugh, Mary,” Janine says, sipping her latte, “but I can usually tell when it comes to people. And I think we're going to be great friends.”

“I agree,” Mary says and smiles, reaching out to squeeze her new friend's hand. “The best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I refuse to believe that it was a coincidence that Mary's best friend worked for Magnussen.


	4. Bygones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU for season 3 (character death). This is adapted from a still-unfilled prompt I left at the Sherlock BBC Prompting Meme ([part XXXIV, page 20](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/21766.html?thread=129096454#t129096454)) on LJ ("what if John met and lost Mary during Sherlock's absence?"). 
> 
> I recently realized that most of my kink meme prompts are simply badly disguised drabbles that I'd like to see expanded into proper fics (and am too lazy to write myself). 221B style drabbles, however, I seem to be able to manage just fine!

Sherlock returns from the dead to find that he's taken the place of another; returns to a freshly dug grave and John limping around an empty flat meant for two, alone. 

People keep telling him that she was a lovely woman and isn't it such a shame, but people are sentimental idiots and Sherlock wants to know who this Mary was, this person who crawled into John's heart and hollowed out a space for herself and settled there for a while before being torn from it. 

He wants to deduce her; he wants to analyze the way she walks, the way she breathes, the calluses of her hands. He wants to speak with her and _at_ her and watch the muscles of her face move, learn which words make her pupils dilate and her fists clench. 

He suspects that she must have been interesting; she made eternal bachelor John Watson settle down and _commit_ and that alone would have made her _fascinating_ but he can't know for sure, not with only photographs left for him to deduce from (scattered facts that mean nothing) and it makes him _angry_. 

So he turns to the next best thing: John. 

And slowly, watching John piece his heart and his life back together, Sherlock gets to know Mary Watson through the man she left behind.


	5. Backup, part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another unfilled kink meme prompt turned 221B drabble (split into two parts). Originally posted at the Sherlock BBC Prompting Meme ([part XXXIV, page 31](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/21766.html?thread=129429766#t129429766)) on LJ back in early 2014.

Prior to John, Sherlock would sometimes bring his skull with him to crime scenes. 

It was not, strictly speaking, out of necessity, but merely because Sherlock was wont to thinking out loud, and it hadn’t taken him long to realise that doing so around Lestrade’s lackeys would more often than not earn him strange (and sometimes hostile) glares.

Thinking out loud _at_ a particular something (namely, the skull) didn’t seem to do much to appease anyone, but Sherlock nevertheless found that talking his information out at a friendly face (again, the skull) proved to be surprisingly helpful. The skull, of course, didn’t possess any kind of intelligence (nor the ability to speak it) but most people had little of importance to say anyway, so Sherlock found that to be of no consequence.

Mostly, the brilliance of the skull lay in that its presence was sure to send Anderson into a sanctimonious fit, followed by his stalking away, which saved Sherlock the trouble of demanding the man’s removal himself.

The arrangement was quite satisfactory, up to a point.

And then Sherlock met John.

It was not a question of needing validation. Sherlock did not _require_ John’s praise—preposterous thought!

But perhaps, as the world’s only consulting detective, Sherlock _did_ deserve his very own Boswell (even if in the form of a blogger).


	6. Backup, part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another unfilled kink meme prompt turned 221B drabble (split into two parts). Originally posted at the Sherlock BBC Prompting Meme ([part XXXIV, page 31](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/21766.html?thread=129429766#t129429766)) on LJ back in early 2014.

Resurrection, as turns out, is a messy business—mostly due to the fact that the living keep on living, out of no respect for the (not quite) dead.

Example: 221B is the same as Sherlock left it, except that John is (angrypunchymustachioed) no longer living there.

He’s with Mary—of whom Sherlock learns to grow rather fond—and has no plans to move back home. He gets married instead, and then he and Mary have a baby, which means taking on more hours at the clinic, which means John is often unable—or downright refuses—to answer Sherlock’s texted summons.

While Sherlock considers this a loss ( _such sentiment_ , Mind Palace Mycroft tuts), he tells himself that it wouldn’t have been so grim had not Mrs. Hudson— _insufferable_ woman!—managed to do away with his skull. Again.

Because now Sherlock finds himself skull-less _and_ blogger-less, with no assistant or sounding board or appropriate candidate available.

He’s _Watson-less_ , to put it bluntly, and not very pleased about it.

Oh well, if needs must:

The nanny—a dismally dull girl—is easily cajoled into letting Sherlock take his goddaughter out for a stroll in the park. Lestrade, inconveniently, proceeds to utterly _ruin_ their outing by being of the (very vocal) opinion that a murder scene in Kensington Gardens is no place for a baby.


End file.
